Reviewer Beth Burke: Beth is a college
professor and
freelance editor. She recently retired as a homeschooling mom when
her son graduated high school. Her love of books spans half a
century, during which time she has read from a wide range of genres. In her free time she creates quilts and tends to a garden.

If you are the person
whose team blames you for losing at Pictionary because of your lack
of drawing skills, or if you have often said, “I can’t draw a
straight line,” take heart! The Drawing Breakthrough Book might be
just the inspiration you need. John Hastings has expanded the
material in this, his third edition, to offer a formula that I think
nearly anyone can follow to hone their drawing skills. Be forewarned,
however—Hastings does not offer a shortcut to becoming proficient.
As with any acquired skill, practice is the key to learning to draw
well, and this book is chock-full of ways to practice. In order to be
successful, the novice will need to spend time with the many
exercises, not just read the book. The spiral binding on this edition
is helpful in making it a useful workbook for this purpose.

Hastings keeps things
simple by breaking down the drawing process into three parts: line
drawing basics, mastering the building-block lines, and expanding on
drawing skills. The components of each are laid out systematically
with explanations for the why, and directions for the how, plus ample
illustrations of good and not-so-good methods. He requires the
student to not only pick up a pencil and draw, but also to look and
really see what is being drawn.

One of the most practical
tips that gave me a “light bulb moment” was the author’s
suggestion to use the drawing pencil to gauge the measurements of a
subject so that the proportions are accurate in the finished drawing.
This can be done from the subject itself or from a photo of it. It
had never occurred to me to use something I had at hand—the pencil
I was drawing with—as the gauge. There are other tips like this for
using the pencil to judge angles and planes. To me, this kind of
commonsense, nontechnical approach makes the instructions easy to
grasp.

After laying out the
fundamentals for drawing, the author focuses on mastery of types of
lines in the second part of the book. Here Hastings’s visualization
technique, again using an everyday object, this time a drinking
glass, helps the student see straight, circular, and elliptical
lines.

The third chapter covers
composition and “going beyond the building block lines.” I think
the composition basics given here are adequate, as that isn’t
really the focus of this volume, and the “going beyond” section
may well serve as the author’s jumping-off point for Volume 2.

The list of recommended
reading and the glossary help make this a true reference book for
those who wish to work at becoming better at drawing. And by being
diligent in working through this book, you may be in demand for that
next game of Pictionary.